The following discussion is not an admission that anything discussed below is citable as prior art or part of the knowledge of people skilled in the art. Any statements regarding the results, performance or inventiveness etc., relating to patents or publications discussed below, are the representations of the alleged inventors of those patents or publications and the present inventor does not admit that any such statements are true.
Granules are dense agglomerates of biomass. Compared to floc or activated sludge, the granules are denser, stronger and settle at a higher velocity. Individual granules may be roughly spherical with a diameter of 1-2 mm, a density of 60-90 g/L and a settling velocity of 30-40 m/hr. Granules may be aerobic or anaerobic as determined by the primary mode of digestion of microbes in the biomass. Anaerobic granules have been commercialized in upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactors.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,566,119 relates to a method of acquiring granular growth of a microorganism in a reactor containing a liquid medium. Surprisingly, according to the invention, aerobic microorganisms are induced to granular growth by maintaining specific culture conditions. During a first step an oxygen-containing gas is supplied and the reactor contents are kept in turbulence. In a second step, after a short settling period, the top part of the reactor medium is discharged.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,793,822 describes a method of producing aerobic biogranules for the treatment of waste water comprising the steps of: a) introducing waste water into a reactor; b) seeding the reactor with a active biomass material; c) supplying the oxygen-containing gas to the reactor to provide a mixing action to the suspension of biomass material in said waste water, the supply of oxygen-containing gas providing a superficial upflow gas velocity greater than 0.25 cm/s; d) initiating a period of nutrient starvation of the biomass material while continuing to supply oxygen-containing gas; e) allowing formed aerobic granules to settle in a settling zone in said reactor; f) discharging at least a portion of the waste water; g) repeating steps (a) to (f) until at least a portion of the biogranules in said settling zone are within a predetermined properties; and h) recovering said biomass granules within those predetermined properties.
International Publication No. WO 2004/024638 relates to a method for the treatment of wastewater comprising an organic nutrient. According to the invention, the waste water is in a first step fed to sludge granules, after the supply of the waste water to be treated the sludge granules are fluidised in the presence of an oxygen-comprising gas, and in a third step, the sludge granules are allowed to settle in a settling step. This makes it possible to effectively remove not only organic nutrients but optionally also nitrogen compounds and phosphate.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,780,319 describes a method of purifying wastewater charged with organic matter which comprises a step of biologically treating the water, during which the organic matter contained in the water is degraded by micro-organisms thereby producing sludge, and a water-sludge separation step, the sludge coming from the separation step being recycled in the biological treatment step, this method being characterized in that it further comprises a step of degrading the sludge, coming either from the biological treatment step or from the separation step, during which the sludge is brought into contact with an ozonated gas under conditions making it possible to obtain a floc consisting of granules whose mean size is greater than 200 microns, the volatile matter content is between 50 and 65%, the thickening factor of this granular sludge, after 30 minutes of settling, always being greater than 4, the conditions for obtaining the said granular sludge consisting in: treating between 0.1 and 2 times the mass of sludge present in the biological treatment step per day and preferably between 0.7 and 1.5 and, applying an ozone dose of between 3 and 100 grams of ozone per kilogram of treated suspended matter (SM), preferably between 4 and 10 grams of ozone per kilo of treated SM.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,985,150 is directed to a process for the aerobic purification of wastewater in a reactor containing unsupported granular active sludge. The oxygen necessary for maintaining aerobic conditions within the reactor is provided in the form of an oxygen-containing gas. The oxygen-containing gas is preferably introduced into the reactor at such a place that the oxygen-containing gas provides at least some mixing action in the reactor. The invention also provides a reactor suitable for this process.